NoTHING to worry about

School starts tomorrow. Actually, school starts in a matter of hours. I should be worried. I should be planning the day, rehearsing it in my head. At the very least, I should be in my classroom doing last minute things to make sure that tomorrow, the first day of school, goes perfectly.
But I'm not.
And in a nutshell, here's why:
There is no perfect.
There is no first day.

What happens tomorrow is totally out of my control. And even if it were in my control, there isn't an actual FIRST DAY that I could make. There is no RIGHT first day of school. The only first day of school that I can have is the one that I'm going to have tomorrow. And the only way that I can make it "right" is to be responsive to it, to make harmony with it, to not fight it or try to make it one way or another- to simply be in it, fully.
And I can't do that, today, on my couch, at my computer. I can't do that until tomorrow, when there are 22 eight year olds looking at me. And all I can do tomorrow is respond to them- openly and generously- to see them, just as they are. And to see myself and our room and what happens in it, just as it is.

I do have intentions for tomorrow. My goal is for the kids to make a friend (or at least feel like they know someone) and to like school enough that they want to come back the next day.  That's all. And I've prepared for that- I've designed games to help them get to know each other and I've planned lessons in which I believe the students will feel competent, that they actually can succeed in school. Those things, I have covered.
But other than that, I'm not planning or scheming or trying to control anything else, because I can't.

The other thing I'm seeing- when I do start to worry- is that it will be fine. Even if something horrible happens, we will respond to it, we will exist with it, it will happen, regardless of us. And we can make peace with it, experience it, and be with it, together. I know this is true because I have experienced things, with 22 third graders, and we do make it through. And often, those are our best times. But mostly, I know, that we will be fine.

So I am off to bake cookies, because that does need to get done. It needs to get done because on Tuesday, I tell the kids about how chocolate chip cookies were a mistake and that if the baker had thrown them out instead of just trying them to see how they were, chocolate chip cookies wouldn't exist. And then of course I have to give them cookies. How can you talk about the importance of chocolate chip cookies and not give them out?

So I am off- not to worry, but to bake instead.